Spanish Judge rules downloading legal

A Spanish judge has ruled that downloading music is perfectly legal, as long as it is for personal use and not commercial gain. Judge Paz Aldecoa threw out a case against an unnamed 48-year-old man who reportedly shared music on p2p networks and distributed custom CDs of the downloaded music. She said that there are no grounds in Spanish law for labelling such a person as a criminal. ...more

CompactFlash reaches 4GB

The first CompactFlash cards capable of storing up to 4GB are launched at CeBIT in Hanover this week. Commonly used in devices such as digital cameras, the cards can hold more than 4,000 high-resolution images. Alternatively more than 1,000 songs or even a full length DVD movie can be stored. ...more

Microsoft's Office Live moniker under threat

Following the news that it was ordered to pay $1.5 billion in patent infringement damages to Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft has been hit with another legal whammy, this time regarding its Office Live offerings. Online media company Office Live has announced that it is suing Microsoft for federal trademark infringement of its moniker. ...more

Quark 5 beta released

Quark has released a beta version of QuarkXPress 5 that can be downloaded from the company's Web site. You can try and get it from the download site, though as I write (Friday afternoon) the site isn't responding at all to download requests. Key features new to XPress in version 5 include Tables, enabling the creation of complex tables with text and graphic elements, and a Layers palette. ...more

IBM answers Nazi accusations

IBM has responded to allegations that it knowingly aided the Nazis during World War II. As we reported on Monday, IBM is the subject of a new book that claims the computing giant helped automate the holocaust with its Hollerith card-punching machines and continued to do so even when the US was at war with Germany. The company has responded by insisting the main points of the allegation were already known and have not just been uncovered: that Hollerith equipment was used by its German subsidiary during the 1930s, and that the-then boss, Thomas J. ...more